KILLING A CAT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 209, 4 September 1930, Page 11

KILLING A CAT.

WING-COMMANDER DALTON

FINED.

USED AXE AND SPADE,

(Bj Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.)

WELLINGTON", Wednesday. Because lie killed a cat by striking it on the head with an axe and, to make assurance doubly sure, pressed the blade ol a spade on its neck to put it out of its misery, in preference to drowning it or poisyaing it, Wing-Coiumander° S. Giant Dalton, director of air services', was to-day proceeded against in theLower Hutt Magistrate's Court by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. He was convicted and fined £2 and costs. Defendant conducted his own case. Mr. T. B. McNeill was on the Bench.

The cat, a half-Persian one, had been cared for by Mrs. E. Sloane and Miss Gibson, of Lower Hutt. Miss Gibson said in evidence that the cat was perfectly healthy. She fed it 011 the morning of August 10 and did not see it again until about mid-day, when she found it three doors away, between the house and the fence. '

It was alive, but it would not come to her. She went for a friend and on returning saw defendant holding the blade of a spade over the cat's throat and holding it down. He said he was putting the cat out of its misery and that it had infantile paralysis. Archibald Basil Cox, who was asked by Miss Gibson to go and see to the burial of the cat, said he was quite satisfied, after defendant's explanation to him, that the cat was disposed of in a humane manner. When he told Miss Gibson the facts she, too, seemed satisfied, and withdrew any suggestions of brutality. "While the motive of defendant might' have been a humane one," said the magistrate, "his action was a rather extraordinary one killing the cat as he did. It is proverbial that a cat is hard to kill, and si suitable method is by drowning, or it might even be by poisoning. But to hit a cat. 011 the head with an axe was a cruel method. I take into consideration that he thought the best thing to do was to kill the cat. He may be fond of animals. He says he is. I must impose a substantial penalty,-as it must not go about that this method of killing a cat might be a humane one." Defendant was fined £2 and costs, £1 11/.